


The Unexpected

by albinokittens300



Category: Hunger Games Trilogy - Suzanne Collins
Genre: F/M, Friends to Lovers, Surrogacy
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-04-02
Updated: 2019-04-02
Packaged: 2020-01-01 06:01:06
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18330056
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/albinokittens300/pseuds/albinokittens300
Summary: Katniss ventured into surrogacy for her best friend, Peeta. Things change and go against their plan, and she had to face that when she ends up helping Peeta raise the baby she carried, that maybe this is what she wants.Written for Prompt 32 of the 2019 Everlark Fic Exchange: katniss and peeta are best friends who have a biological child together (how they ended up having a kid is up to you and how they’ll get together is up to you) [submitted by anonymous]





	The Unexpected

**Author's Note:**

> Finally getting around to posting these! This is the first of a chaptered fic. So far, I don't have any more chapters finished, and it may be a while, but I do promise this idea dug it's way into my heart. For sure will start working on it soon! Any progress I make will be updated on my Everlark Tumblr blog, which is mellarked-katnisseverdeen :). 
> 
> For now, enjoy this first chapter! Let me know what you think in the comments, and defiantly give a kudos if you feel like it.

Willow let the bottle fall from her mouth. Giving the woman holding her a clear message that this meal was finished. Katniss looked at the nearly empty bottle and noted how much the newborn had consumed before smiling down at her. 

“Good job, kiddo.” Katniss coos, kissing the infant's head lovingly. Meanwhile, her other hand reaches to deposit the bottle into the sink.  
Just as she is about to settle on the couch to sway the baby back to sleep, the door opens with a gust of winter air, and Peeta enters. A bag of bakery bread and treats in his hands, wearing full winter clothes and a warm if not tired smile. 

“You look cold.” Katniss teases offhandedly.

“Full blown blizzard out there, actually.” He responds. The baby is where his eyes go next. “Thank you so much again, Katniss. For everything.” 

“It’s nothing, really.” Is her almost too quick response. The words heavy with an underlying double meaning.

Getting to help had actually been wonderful. Meeting and bonding with the baby she had carried and given birth too, Katniss couldn’t help but allow her heart to melt. Loving Willow was not something she expected to happen- her plans had never included motherhood or children at all. But something broke when Willow left the hospital without her, and that something was soothed with holding the baby girl again. 

Despite being surrogate in name, and even her feeble attempts at denying it, Katniss loved Willow as any mother would their baby. It was dumb luck she had the opportunity to help afterward. 

A wave of bitterness hit her at the thought of why Peeta, while a wonderful father even only three months in, had struggled. His ex-wife Delly had left six months in. The whole affair was quiet, and from what she saw Peeta was happier once the papers were signed. He was far more concerned, it had seemed, with assuring her that the baby she was carrying would be loved and always have a family with him. 

And he proved it, too. Peeta adored Willow from the second she was placed in his arms. Nurturing was second nature to him, and love flowed from her best friend in spades.  
Even with all of this, two solid weeks of sleep deprivation had made him crumble. Reaching out shyly one morning to ask if she was busy. And if not, if she could come and look after Willow while he tried to sleep. Without hesitation, she rushed to his place and took over soothing the wailing little girl.

Nothing much had changed in that way, since then. She helped him with Willow and got to be a part of the little girl's life. Peeta got to sleep more than an hour a night. They got to be close again, closer than they had been in a long time. Despite the last bit going unmentioned between them, the arrangement seemed to work beautifully. 

Since he married Delly, they had grown slightly distant in the last five years or so. At first, she would admit to being jealous but accepting. And it stung when his priorities changed to not include her as much as they had before. They were always close, but a painful rift had grown. Katniss continued to be a supportive and loving friend. To the point she spared only a second in agreeing to be his surrogate when the couple had struggled to find a suitable one. Suddenly, distance had begun to heal and close when she became pregnant, and with mutually caring for the baby.

Prim had noted that she seemed happier with Peeta and their baby that was never meant to be theirs. Making the joke that they would be the pair of best friends who had a baby together. Her baby sister got a pillow tossed at her for the tease. 

Though, as Peeta settles next to her on the couch. Leaning into her shoulder and smiling at her and Willow, Katniss struggles to call the feeling that courses through her any kind of ordinary friendship. The warmth that the affectionate and adoring look he gave her and the both of them regularly made her heart beat race sometimes. Pushing it aside, she tells herself that how they were. They protect one another, love one another. There was nothing out of the ordinary for close friends, right?

Right. They had been friends since she lost her father in grade school. Her and Peeta, they were just close friends. Closer than most. 

It seems as though it isn’t enough to convince her heart, however. Because when Peeta shifts to hug both her and Willow, she hopes he would kiss her. Even if only on the forehead. And the comfort she gets when he wraps his arm around her makes her sink into the contact anyways.


End file.
